China’s retail sales grew at a faster pace in Aug, beat market expectations
DATA MACRO
China’s retail sales grew at a faster pace in Aug, beat market expectations
DATA MACRO

China’s retail sales grew at a faster pace in Aug, beat market expectations

 

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China’s retails sales picked up in August and beat market expectations driven by the strong demand during the summer holiday season and the government’s policy to boost consumption.

China’s retail sales rose by 4.6% in August from a year earlier, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, compared to expected 3.5% growth and picking up from the 2.5% growth in the previous month, marking the fastest growth in three months.

Retails sales excluding automobile products grew by 5.1% on year, picking up by 2.1 percentage points from the previous month, showed the data.

In the first eight months of the year, retail sales grew by 7% from a year earlier, showed the data. 

Retail sales of physical goods rose 3.7% on year in August, picking up from the 1% growth in July, while catering sales rose by 12.4%, slowing from the 15.8% growth in the previous month. In the first eight months of the year, retail sales of goods grew by 5.6% on year and catering sales grew by 19.4%. 

Online retail sales grew by 12.1% year over year in Jan – Aug, with online retail sales of goods growing by 9.5% and accounting for 26.4% of China’s total retail sales.

In August alone, online retail sales rose 7.6% year over year, picking up by 1 percentage point from the previous month, ending the slowing trend since May, and the proportion in the total retail sales rose by 1.2 percentage point to 26.3%, according to calculations based on NBS data.

Despite the relaxation of real estate policy, consumption related to real estate remained at a low level though picking up from the previous month. Retail sales of furniture grew by 4.8% in August from a year earlier, picking up by 4.7 percentage points from the previous month, and retail sales of home appliance and audio-visual equipments fell by 2.9%, narrowing by 2.6 percentage points, but retail sales of building and decoration materials fell at a faster pace, sliding 11.4% from a year earlier.